UPDATE: On Wednesday, 15 August 2018, WHO Director-General, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus provided a response to the open letter on the Roadmap on Access to Medicines and Vaccines 2019-2023. The Director-General’s response can be found here: WHO DG letter to KEI 15 August 2018 Access roadmap On Friday, 3 August 2018, 16 groups sent an …

On 27 June 2018, a small group of activists and public health campaigners organized a demonstration in front of Austria’s Health Ministry. Banners displayed the following messages: “Austrian Presidency of the EU: put patients before profits”, “Pharma 3 – Patients 0”, and “Pharma score goals with high prices”. KEI Europe, along with 11 other groups …

On 16 April 2018, KEI Europe and 32 groups wrote a letter to the European Commission’s Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, expressing concerns over the Commission’s plans to create an EU Watch List. In the letter, we noted that although the European Union has publicly reiterated its commitment to support the right of third countries to …

On 16 April 2018, KEI Europe and 32 groups wrote a letter to the European Commission’s Trade Commissioner, Cecilia Malmström, expressing concerns over the Commission’s plans to create an EU Watch List. The letter states that “despite the European Union’s public pledge of support for third countries’ right to use the flexibilities of the TRIPS …

In March 2018, the Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) published its 2018 National Trade Estimates Report on Foreign Trade Barriers (NTE). Every year, the USTR is mandated to “submit to the President,the Senate Finance Committee, and appropriate committees in the House of Representatives, an annual report on significant foreign trade barriers. The …

On 21 February 2018, the European Commission published a report on the “protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights in third countries”. The main objective of the report “is to identify third countries in which the state of IPR protection and enforcement gives rise to the greatest level of concern and thereby to establish an …

On Tuesday, 6 March 2018, Cristina Pucarinho, the Deputy Permanent Representative of Portugal to the United Nations made the following intervention at a UN briefing on Promoting Innovation and Access to Health Technologies in the Context of the Agenda 2030 in New York. Portugal’s intervention on transparency in New York echoed the statement Portugal delivered …

Portugal delivered the following statement at the 70th World Health Assembly on agenda item, 13.3 – Global shortage of, and access to medicines and vaccines. In relation to the Report of the United Nations High-Level Panel on Access to Medicines (UNHLP), the delegation of Portugal quoted the intervention delivered by the Portuguese Minister of Health, …